The Core of The Heart
by CelosiaGriffon
Summary: Had Vincent known that those three words would start a chain reaction that would eventually turn his life on its head and send his whole world spiraling out of control, he would have got up right then and there and walked away. TsengxShera,CidxVin
1. I'm Getting Married

"I'm getting married."

And that was how it started. In all honesty, had Vincent Valentine known that those few words would start a chain reaction that would eventually turn his life on its head and send his whole world spiraling out of control, he would have got up right then and there and walked away.

Instead, in his surprised state he somehow failed to dodge when Cid sprayed hot tea and jumped to his feet to shout at Shera. "You're what?" he all but shrieked, blue eyes wide. Vincent calmly reached across the table and put out the cigarette the pilot had dropped on the table before something could catch fire.

"I'm getting married, Chief," she said, grinning from ear to ear. Cid's jaw went entirely slack now.

Vincent wiped the tea off his face and offered Shera a smile. "Congratulations, Miss Shera, may I inquire as to who?"

"Tseng," Shera's green eyes were alight in a way Vincent had never seen before, bright so amazingly full of happiness. "He proposed last night!"

There was a startled squeaking noise and a thump. Vincent offered Shera more congratulations as he walked over to the sink to fill a glass with water. "Do you have a date for the wedding yet?" he asked conversationally.

Shera was giving Cid's unconscious form a worried look. "Not yet," she said, "I want to get married in the spring when the cherry blossoms are blooming."

"That sounds wonderful," Vincent said, giving her a rare sincere smile, made rarer still by the conspicious absence of his cape, which Shera had insisted on washing the previous night, before he dumped the glass of water on the unconscious Cid. Cid jumped up cussing and shouting death threats on the sorry bastard who would dare dump water on him. "Good morning to you, too, Highwind," Vincent said, setting the cup down.

Cid spun around and pointed at Shera, "You can't get married! And to a Turk, no less!"

"Says who?" Shera asked, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at the mechanic. She pointed and accusing finger at Vincent. "He was a Turk and you've got no problem with him!"

"No problem?" Cid roared, "He's a fuckin' emo vampire! Of course I got problems with 'im! I just got a helluva lot more problem with you marryin' a _current _Turk!"

"_He_ would appreciate if you left him out of this," Vincent said with a note of exasperation. In all honesty, he was starting to miss the shy, mousy Shera he had met last year. This rebellious, argumentative woman tended to get into too many headache inducing fights with Cid.

Shera glowered at him. "Fine!" she shouted, spinning on her heels, "I'm leaving! You can fend for yourself, Cid Highwind! I'm sick of taking care of you!"

"Fine!" Cid roared at her back, "I don't need ya anyway!"

When the door slammed, Cid fell into his chair and put his face in his hands. "Very good, Chief," Vincent said sarcastically. "You just pushed away the best friend you've ever had _and_ the only person willing to cook for you. Do you even know how to boil water?"

"Of course I can fuckin' boil fuckin' water!" Cid snapped. He slammed his palm down on the table. "Fuck!"

"Eloquent," Vincent muttered.

Cid fell into silence again. While he fumed, Vincent cleaned up the remains of their breakfast and made his first attempt and doing dishes. As soon as he began to think that this might not be as hard as he thought, the soap-covered plate slipped out of his hand and hit the floor with a crash. 'So much for easy.'

"How could she be getting married?" Cid, well, more groaned.

"Normal people get married, Highwind."

"But Shera's miiine," Cid whined horribly immaturely. Vincent rolled his eyes. Another plate slid out of his hands. "What was that?" Cid asked.

"Nothing," Vincent lied, pushing the plate shards under the counter with his foot. "Do you have any idea how immature you sound? Besides, unless she is wearing _your_ ring you have no claim on her." Cid grumbled something about fucking rings and no warning and damn Turks. Vincent dropped a glass this time and wisely gave up on his efforts. With a sigh he returned to his seat and glared patiently at Cid.

"Are you done yet?" he asked.

"Fuck you," Cid grumbled before returning to muttering incoherent curses.

Once he was sure that Cid would not do something drastic and stupid like go to Midgar and try to kill Tseng, Vincent decided it might be a good idea to search out Shera and make sure she was alright. Cid was an insufferable jerk some days and for some reason he always ended up being twice as mean to Shera even when he tried to be nice. Even though Shera knew that as well as anyone, even Vincent could tell it was hard for her to take the abuse some days.

He found her in what was obviously Shera's favorite place to brood and fume, the remains of Cid's attempt at a rocket. With a sigh, he sat down on a piece of shrapnel near her and waited for her to speak.

"How's he doing?"

Vincent smiled. "How do you think he's doing, Miss Shera? Neither of us are even capable of doing dish work much less cooking. I am thoroughly surprised he has not had some kind of panic attack."

Shera adjusted the small bag on her arm and gazed sadly up at Vincent. "Should I come home for the night?" she asked.

I would prefer it if you did," Vincent admitted. He smiled ruefully behind his cape, "I would really rather not suffer through Highwind's pathetic attempts at cooking any soon than I have to." Shera giggled. "But in all honesty, Miss Shera, we have both become accustomed to your care and nurturing. He needs to understand that you will not always be there to care for him."

"What about you?" Shera asked, a knowing smile playing across her face. "Believe it or not, Vincent, he is a lot easier to get along with when you are around. The Chief really does like having you here." She could still remember the day that Cid returned from the fight with Sephiroth, bursting in the door and announcing that the "goddamn emo vampire" was going to to be staying with them until Cid convinced him not to go crawling back to the "creepy-ass coffin in the even more creepy ass Shinra mansion". He had stayed for a week before finally disappearing into the night.

A month later, Vincent had reappeared, just out of the blue shown up on their doorstep one night in the middle of a roaring thunderstorm, Cerberus still warm from a recent battle. He had offered no explanation, but no one really expected one. Shera still had his bed in the guest room made and waiting for him and Cid just retreated into the kitchen and returned with a steaming mug of coffee and the leftovers from the dinner Shera had made for them.

For almost a year, that became the routine. Vincent would randomly appear, stay a few days, and then disappear into the night again. It became as normal to them as Cid's obsession with tea or Shera's insistence that Cid quit smoking. If the residents of Rocket Town knew or cared about their strange visitor, no one said anything, probably for fear of incurring the Chief's increasingly volatile temper when Vincent was not around.

Now that she thought about it, Vincent was due to leave any day now. Shera inwardly winced. No wonder Cid was being moodier than usual.

"I'll be back in time for dinner, alright?" Shera said, offering up a smile to him. "But don't tell Cid," she warned, wagging a finger at him, "I want to keep him scared."

"Of course."

As he watched her walk away, Vincent could not help but think that part of his twisted sense of humor had rubbed off on the woman. It was a worrying thought.


	2. Blizzards

Not a word was said about the fight earlier that morning when Shera returned, nor was anything said of it the next day. Cid and Shera went about their lives like nothing had happened. One morning, they got up to find that Vincent had, once again, disappeared. Cid spent the rest of the day muttering incoherent curses about his friends running off and abandoning him.

Feeling guilty, Shera made him his favorite dinner and stayed up the whole night preparing enough frozen meals to keep him satiated for her three day trip to Midgar. She had been planning this trip since before Vincent's departure and she would be damned if she let Cid's moodiness stop her from planning her wedding to the man she loved.

For the sake of avoiding another fight, Shera sent him to bed like she always did. When she was sure the Chief was asleep, she sat down and spent the next three hours writing a letter that she hoped would make Cid understand what she was doing and how she felt without absolute blurting out why she was so suddenly pulling away from him. If she did that, she might accidentally give the poor man a heart attack. She got the vague feeling Cid was even more oblivious as to the workings of his own mind and heart than most men were.

When the letter was finished, she set it on the table where he would find it and went back to her room to finish packing. Tseng would be waiting on the outskirts of town with a helicopter for her, so she tried to hurry as much as she could without waking Cid. "I'm sorry, Chief," she whispered as she rushed out the door, "You'll understand eventually."

"Was he mad?" Tseng asked as she sat down next to him in the chopper.

"Didn't tell him," Shera answered simply. Tseng gave her a sideways look. "You don't know him like I do, Tseng," she whispered.

"I know he's a brutish, arrogant, and very crude man," Tseng replied evenly, "What else is there to know?"

Shera glared at him. "He's my best friend, Tseng. I want him to be happy."

Tseng shook his head. "I don't get it," he said, "but I'll trust you."

"Thanks, Love," Shera leaned over and planted a kiss on his lips. A rare, loving smile spread across Tseng's face.

_Chief,_

_You're probably going to curse me six ways to Junon when I get back three days from now, but I'm going to do this anyway. Tseng and I are getting married. There is nothing you can do or say that will change that. I love him more than life and I have since the day I met him._

_But that's not what this note is about. You're in love, Chief, and it's not with me. I can't tell you any more than that, though. You have to figure it out for yourself, and I know you never will as long as I'm here, as long as you think you're in love with me._

_I'm not stupid, Chief, and I'm far from blind. You think you love me. That's why that ship you've been working so obsessively on is named after me when it should be named after someone else. I thought I was in love with you, once, too, but the moment I saw you two together I knew what I felt was nothing close to love. I thought I would never feel that powerful love that I saw in the two of you._

_Then I met Tseng. He changed everything. And here I am, ranting about Tseng again. Sorry._

_I'm going to Midgar for three days. Just three, I promise. I'm not going to completely abandon you just yet. There are meals in the ice box, more than enough to last you the weekend even if Vincent comes home again. Just pop them in the oven for half an hour on 300, instant meal._

_I'll see you when I get home._

_Love,_

_Shera_

When Shera came home three days later, it was to find the house a complete mess, not that she was really surprised. Cid had never been the neatest of people, but now it seemed almost as though he had gone out of his way to make the house even messier than usual.

"Chief!" she called as she slammed the door, "I'm home!" She toed a suspicious looking pile of old clothes out of the way and went off in search of the errant Highwind. In retrospect, she had to wonder why she had bothered searching the house. There was only one place that Cid was if it was before 8 at night, and that was in his shop working on his new airship.

Judging by the distinct lack of pilot and the lack of any missing coffee when she checked the kitchen, Vincent had obviously not come home yet. With a sigh and a shake of her head, Shera went off to Cid's shop. True to form, she found him deep in the belly of his newest ship, working on some problem he had found with the engines that only he could possibly have noticed.

"I'm home," she called, poking her head into the engine room.

A grease covered, oil-splattered figure that looked as though it might have had blond hair at one point emerged from under a section of the engine, cigarette stuck between his teeth. "The hell are ye standin' there for? Get yer ass in here and help me, dammit!"

Shera smiled and obediently crawled under the engine next to Cid. "See that?" he pointed into a small crevice with a flashlight. "I need ya to pull out whatever's jammed in there. My damn hand's too big."

"I keep telling you to stop doing this," Shera muttered as he reached up into the narrow chink in the metal. "How can you work on your own engines if you keep compacting them until you have to pull them apart just to tighten a bolt?" Privately, Shera was grateful for the return to normalcy. Even if Cid had managed to trash the house, he was still treating her like Shera, still giving random orders and being gruff and grumpy to hide his own mistakes.

She felt around a bit more and finally her fingers touched something that felt out of place, rough where it should have been smooth. Securing her fingertips around it as best she could, she gave the thing a hard yank. It slipped free and fell into her waiting hand, "Looks like part of one of the fuel cells is cracking," Shera muttered, examining it, "What do you think, Chief?"

"Oh shit," Cid muttered just before a jet of oil sprayed out of the crevice and sprayed both of them in the face. Shera was too busy laughing at Cid's oil-covered face to berate him for filling the ship's tanks before making sure everything was sealed properly.

Vincent Valentine cursed the snow for all he was worth. Especially the Cosmo Canyon snow. Especially the Cosmo Canyon snow when he was stuck out in it next to a dying fire with only a frostbitten ninja girl for company. Nothing against Yuffie, he really did like the girl... at a distance... when her mouth was closed... but he really would have preferred different company on this particular stakeout. He was still wondering how Yuffie had managed to find him and how she had managed to get him to help her with this particular mission.

And now, thanks to a unexpected snow storm, not only had they lost their target in the canyon, but they were also stuck in a cave with no way to contact the outside world to get help. And Cosmo Canyon snow storms tended to last a very, very long time.

Like most of the winter.

'I really need to get a cell phone,' he thought.

"Cheer up!" Yuffie said through slightly chattering teeth. Vincent had repeatedly told her to put more clothes on before they left Nibelheim, but she had stubbornly insisted that she could handle "a little cold". "It can't last much longer, can it?"

Vincent gave her a very flat look. "Don't they have snow storms in Wutai?" he asked carefully.

Yuffie nodded vigorously. "Yeah," she said, "we have to stay inside for weeks on.... oh."

Vincent sighed and took off his cape. "Get comfortable," he advised, tossing the red garment to her. Yuffie quickly wrapped up in it with a muffled "thanks". "We're going to be here a while. Pray Nanaki thinks to check that we made it back to Midgar safely."

He privately cursed Tseng for all he was worth. The Turk had been the one to ask that he and Yuffie check out the group that had been hiding out in the canyon, saying that Rufus thought they were too little to bother with but he was going to err on the side of caution. There had been no outward sign of it, but Vincent got the vague feeling he was still a little sore about AVALANCHE coming up from nowhere right under his nose in Midgar almost two years ago.

On the plus side, the group seemed to have been as unaware of Cosmo Canyon storms as Yuffie was. Vincent was betting that they had, if nothing else, been trapped by the storm just like them.

"What do you think everyone's doing right now?" Yuffie asked suddenly. Vincent cast her a curious look. "I mean Cloud and the others. What do you think they're doing right now?"

"Probably enjoying a warm house and warm food," Vincent said with a touch of grumpiness, "far away from this," he gestured to the raging snow storm outside. 'Except Cid,' he thought with a wry smile. As long as there was still some remnant of daylight in Rocket Town, the man would be in his shop working on that blasted ship of his. Vincent could not count the number of times he had arrived late at night only to find Cid fast asleep over his work desk or under an engine or some other strange place.

Right about now Shera would probably be threatening not to make dinner for him if he did not come back to the house. Cid would be shouting back at her that he would just be a few minutes more and to get started on dinner. He would be down in time to eat.

And Shera would shake her head and go off to make dinner, knowing full well she would be bringing it up to the ship for him to eat.

"Hey!" Yuffie suddenly shouted, breaking him away from his thoughts, "Vinnie! You're smiling!"

"Excuse me?" Vincent asked.

"You're really cute when you smile!" Yuffie gushed, pointing a finger at him. "What were you thinking about?"

"Nothing," Vincent lied, suddenly wanting his cloak back. He got the vague feeling that he might be blushing.

"It's a girl, isn't it?" Yuffie almost squealed now, pouncing towards him, "You're blushing! You were thinking about a girl!"

Vincent groaned. This was going to be a long night.

"What do you mean they're not back from Cosmo Canyon yet?"

Tseng was rather amused to hear Nanaki's normally calm voice raise almost an octave in alarm. "I'm sure they just got a bit side tracked, Nanaki," he said.

"Side tracked by a blizzard!" Nanaki snapped, "It's been snowing for two days, Tseng!"

Tseng cursed. The science department had assured that Cosmo Canyon was not due for a snow storm for another week.

"If they're dead when I find them, Tseng," Nanaki's voice sank to a low, threatening growl through the phone that made the hairs on Tseng's neck stand on end, "I am holding you personally responsible."

"Please do," Tseng sighed and hung up the phone. "Shera is going to kill me anyway," he added as an afterthought as he began to dial her number.


	3. Not A Good Way to Start a Relationship

::sweatdrop:: Sorry it took so long to update this, guys! I didn't expect life to get in the way, but it did! So, anyway, here's the next chapter. I'm having far too much fun writing this!

Thanks so much for the watches! Reviews are always appreciated, though!

**The Core of The Heart****  
Chapter 3**

Cid could not understand why Shera kept pacing by the phone. It was starting to get ridiculous. He was getting dizzy from watching her go in circles like that!

Two hours! For two hours she had been pacing in front of that phone, all other chores forgotten. Cid had been forced to race into the kitchen to stop their dinner from catching fire because Shera had completely forgotten about it. Every time he tried to ask what was wrong, she just shook her head and went back to pacing.

"This is insane," he muttered as he downed his eighth cup of tea. It must have been Tseng. That panicky, frantic aura she was radiating must have meant that something had happened to Tseng. 'Damn you, Rufus Shinra,' he thought angrily, 'at least let the man get married before ya go and get his ass killed!'

Tifa could only watch Tseng in mute fascination. Every five seconds he would flip his cell phone open, glare at it as though it were responsible for some great tragedy, and then snap it shut again and take a sip of his beer. Elana, Rude, and Reno all sat around him, looking somewhere between puzzled and worried.

"You're sure you don't know what's going on?" Cloud asked Elana.

Elana shook her head. "He's been like this all afternoon," she reported sadly.

"Won't tell us anything, yo," Reno grumbled.

"Could there be something wrong with Shera?" Tifa asked. She had been one of the few outside the Turks and Cid to know about the engagement, as Shera had asked her for permission to have the reception dinner at the bar.

Tseng's hand gave a spastic twitch. "I wish," he said and checked his phone again. He was starting to understand why there were husbands that were absolutely terrified of their wives. The tone of Shera's voice when he had told her that Vincent Valentine was missing... he would rather have faced Sephiroth again than face her if he had to report that something had happened to that man.

He took a much larger gulp of his beer and checked his phone again.

It took a few painfully groggy minutes for Vincent to comprehend what had dragged him out of a rather bizarre dream involving a teenage girl with glowing yellow eyes and wings chasing around what appeared to be Sephiroth on a pink chocobo. It took another minutes for him to figure out why there was a body curled up next to his and why he was so cold.

_'Tseng, Yuffie, Cosmo Canyon, ringing any bells?'_ the sarcastic voice of Chaos asked form the back of his mind.

Vincent calmly told him to go to hell as he carefully shifted Yuffie's sleeping form away from him and peered out around his sanctuary. He had fallen asleep behind a small line of stalagmites trying to escape the wind, but now it was serving as the perfect hiding place.

Three figures were hunched just inside the cave with a blazing fire in the center of their small circle. "Goddamn snow," the smallest of the three was grumbling.

"At least we lost those two that were following us," the middle one murmured as he put his arm around the smaller one.

Vincent could have smacked himself for the irony of it. He and Yuffie had spent an entire afternoon chasing these three around Cosmo Canyon and here they were, right in front of him, stuck in the same blizzard-sheltering cave.

"I hope they're alright," the third one, this one much larger and more muscular, muttered as he looked out at the snow, "It's really cold out there."

"Don't worry about them, Loz," the small one grumbled, "if they'd caught us they probably would have brought us back to ShinRa. Do you really want that?"

Vincent's crimson eyes went wide. So Tseng had known more about their targets than he let on.

"No," the big one muttered.

"Let's get some rest," the middle one advised, "Hopefully this storm will let up soon so we can find somewhere warmer to go."

The three fell asleep surprisingly quickly, all piled on top of each other like a litter of puppies waiting for their mother to return. Something about it was oddly cute to Vincent even while another part of him was disturbed by it. He considered trying to capture the trio while they were sleeping, but some part of his mind was just too honorable to do that.

Besides, he would just be grateful if they all got out of here alive.

"Would you fuckin' stop pacing!" Cid finally exploded.

Shera gave a small scream of surprise and spun around. "Chief!" she gasped, "I forgot you were there. Is everything alright?"

Cid glared at her. "Ye've been pacin' there for almost four hours, Shera! What the fuck's goin' on?"

"Four hours?" Shera repeated blankly. She glanced over his shoulder at the kitchen clock, which indeed read almost ten to ten. Tseng had called her at 6. She gave a small squeak and accepted the cup of tea that Cid handed to her.

"What happened?" he asked carefully. The last thing he wanted was for Shera to do something crazy like start bawling on him. He hated dealing with crying women.

Shera took a long sip of her tea before speaking. "Vincent's missing," she said, doing herself to brace for the inevitable explosion.

"So?" Cid asked, "Shera, Vin's _always_ goin' missin'."

"No," she shook her head violently, "Tseng asked him and Yuffie to check something out in Cosmo Canyon and they got caught in a blizzard down there! They've been missing for two days!"

"_**What?!**_" the sheer volume that Cid's voice rose to made Shera drop her cup. As many times as she had seen the pilot lose his temper, never had it been this bad. It was testament to just how mad he was when Cid did not seem to notice the shattered mug on the floor.

As Cid rushed out of the room, most likely to get the Tiny Bronco, Shera reached for the phone to call Tseng. It would probably be best if Tseng was nowhere to be found if he chose to go to Midgar.

"Vinnie! Vinnie, wake up!"

Vincent glared at the ninja. She was leaning over him, a look of panic written across her face. "They're here!" she whispered urgently.

"Yes, and?" Vincent asked impatiently. He peered over the top of the rocks. The three silver-haired teenagers were still sleeping, the largest of the two leaning against a rock with the smaller cuddled comfortably in his arms. He did not much feel like getting into a fight with three unknown enemies and risking any of them getting hurt when they had no way of getting help.

Yuffie stared at him with a look of pure shock. Vincent rolled his eyes and rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in that did not include Yuffie leaning over him or getting hit in the face by cold wind. He was really starting to miss Cid's nice, warm, comfortable house back in Rocket Town. And Shera's tea.

"Shouldn't we do something?" Yuffie asked frantically. "What if they wake up and kill us while we're asleep or-"

"Go back to sleep, Yuffie," Vincent grumbled. "They don't want to fight us and I don't want to fight them, so unless you do something remarkably stupid we can go on with them being happily oblivious to our presence."

Yuffie leaned against the rocks behind her and huffed. "What do you have waiting for you when we get out of here anyway?" she sniped. "Gonna go back to your coffin in that creepy mansion?"

"I'm going back to Rocket Town," he replied evenly. "Shera has asked that I be there to help with the plans for her wedding."

"Wedding?" Yuffie squealed, clapping her hands in delight. "Are Cid and Shera finally getting married? I wanna come!"

Vincent chuckled. "Cid isn't going to get married, and certainly not to Shera. She's marrying Tseng from the Turks."

Yuffie blinked. "Tseng? No way!" She stared at Vincent. "I thought for sure she was gonna marry Cid!"

Vincent shook his head and laughed. "Cid's never had any interest in marrying Shera."

"You're laughing!" Yuffie shrieked, pointing accusingly at Vincent. "Oh my gawd! You're laughing!"

"I am capable of laughing, Yuffie."

"Coulda fooled me! You don't even smile, Vinnie! Well, except around Cid..." Yuffie suddenly looked like someone had smacked her in the face with something very large and probably quite random. She pointed a finger and at Vincent and shouted at such a volume that he worried it would wake their cave-mates. "You're in love with Cid!"

Vincent rolled his eyes. "I'm going back to sleep now. Stop screaming random things." And, indeed, he stretched out against the rocks and went back to sleep.

When Cid landed the Tiny Bronco in Cosmo Canyon barely an hour later, Nanaki was waiting for him. "Shera called and told me you were coming," the fire beast explained as Cid followed him inside.

"Any luck?" he asked.

Nanaki shook his head. "The wind and the ice are too bad for anyone with less than an armored tank to travel through. I only pray the two of them are out of the weather. I'm actually amazed you made it here without crashing, Chief."

Cid gave a snort. "I'm Cid fuckin' Highwind! I can fly through anything!"

"I'm starting to believe that," Nanaki muttered.

But, even if the brave pilot could _fly_ through anything, sitting through a snow storm seemed to a little more difficult for him. Within an hour, the pilot had paced so many circles in Nanaki's living room that the fire dog was starting to get dizzy. "How much longer until this damn snow lets up?" Cid asked.

"Hopefully soon," Nanaki grumbled, shaking his head, "because you're going to drive me crazy if you keep pacing like that." A few of the men from the search party that Nanaki had gathered all nodded in agreement.

Someone outside shouted that the weather was clearing. It was all Cid needed to take off running into the storm outside. "Damn idiot," Nanaki murmured, shaking his shaggy head.

Tseng nearly jumped right off his stool when he cell phone rang. Reno, who had been snoozing on the bar next to him, fell over with a yelp and dragged Rude down with an equally startled yell.

"What time is it?" Elana murmured, rubbing her eyes.

"Well?" Tseng asked, snapping the phone open.

"We've found Yuffie," Nanaki reported. Tseng slumped gratefully in his seat. "And Vincent?" he asked.

The line was silent for a moment. In the background, Tseng could hear Cid shouting curses and threats at such a volume Tseng felt bad for the residents of Cosmo Canyon. "No sign of him," Nanaki admitted. "Yuffie said that he was in the cave with her when she fell asleep but when Cid woke her up he was gone."

Tseng made a small whimpering noise. "Thanks Nanaki," he said and snapped the phone shut. "Damn," he muttered and began shamelessly beating his head against the bar top. Shera was going to kill him. This was not a good way to start a relationship with someone.

Please R&R~


	4. A Worse Way To Start A Relationship

Hello, dear readers. Sorry it took so long to get this up, life's been getting in the way. I won't bore you with the details other than a brief complaint about stupid customers and "why the hell did I decide to get another tattoo on my arm when I kept stupidly brushing the last one up against my boob?"

Thanks for all the love and support, I love hearing from you guys. ^_^ And a few of you mentioned Cid's utter and complete assholery the last few chapters. You're right, of course, Cid is an unmitigated ass. Believe me, I'm replaying the game right now. But you get to see his more fluffy, loving side this chapter. With a side helping of angst. Please, no one kill me for what you're about to read.

**Disclaimer: Yeah, right. If I owned FFVII there would be a lot more ass-kicking mpreg babies running around.**

"Tseng, please don't tell me you've been following him this whole time."

Tseng did his best not to roll his eyes. "Yes, sir, I have been chasing him this whole time. If your fiancé was threatening to call off your wedding, you would too."

Rufus gazed up at him from his wheelchair, a look of morbid fascination written across his face. "Shera's really threatening to call off the wedding?" he asked. Tseng nodded. "Alright. Permission granted, but I want all of you back here as soon as Vincent is delivered to Rocket Town."

Tseng could have kissed his boss at that moment. He rushed out of the office at breakneck speeds to wake his coworkers and get them on their way to the City of the Ancients. Rufus sighed and turned a bemused smile to the figure standing in the doorway to his private room. "Why am I letting him get married again?"

"Because you're not the evil, manipulative bastard that you pretend to be?"

Rufus gave him a simpering pout that had been known to bring lesser men to their knees.

**~*~Insert a witty line break comment here~*~**

Vincent Valentine did not move from his perch. The gunman was sitting on a tree branch twenty feet above Tseng's head, apparently dead to the world. All winter he had chased this man across Gaia, chasing ghosts and shadows and stories until just the mention of Vincent's name was enough to make him jump. And after all that he found him in the City of the Ancients, still following the three silver-haired boys that had appeared outside of Cosmo Canyon. Tseng really wanted to beat his head against a tree right now.

Vincent was not getting away again. It was spring and he and Shera were supposed to be married in less than a month. If he failed to get the gunman back before then, the wedding was off. Tseng flipped his phone open and dialed Reno to make sure everyone was in position.

"_Why are you making such a big deal about this, anyway, yo?"_ Reno asked grumpily. Tseng could almost see him sitting in a tree somewhere, arms crossed and pouting. "_It's four in the morning! Couldn't this have waited until, I dunno, six?"_

Tseng closed his eyes. "Because I'm not going to let Shera call off the wedding because I didn't bring Cid's boyfriend home on time."

**~*~See previous line break~*~**

Shera found the song blaring from Cid's radio highly ironic. Who in their right mind wrote a song about waiting on pink lines? Downstairs, she could hear her mother and sisters fussing around the kitchen, tutting and grumbling about the sorry state that Shera had to live in. They had arrived just over two weeks ago and there had been instant animosity between them and Cid. Shera's mother took every opportunity to snipe at Cid for something, for the way he treated Shera, for the way he didn't treat Shera, for the way he kept the house...

It was true Cid's house was a mess, but Shera had grown to accept that fact, even enjoy it. Cid was a master of organized chaos and once you figured out his pattern it really did not seem that messy, just a little cluttered. Okay, a lot cluttered. Cid Highwind was a pack rat, but he was Shera's pack rat, damnit! She did not need to bother defending him, though, Cid wasted no time in letting it be known how very little he enjoyed his house invaders. More often than not, it was left to Shera to keep them from trying to kill each other.

She stared hatefully down at the little white piece of plastic sitting on the sink in front of her, fingers crossed and praying that she was wrong. Even more, she was praying she would have her answer before another fight broke out. The radio sung out the last few notes of "Waiting on Two Pink Lines" and moved onto a song about chrome.

Downstairs, Cid came grumbling into the kitchen in his boxers, hair askew and scratching something that really should not have been scratched in the presence of three already grumpy and irate women. Shera's mother, a diminutive woman with flyaway white hair and thick, pink-rimmed glasses that failed horribly at hiding her disapproving glare, gave him a dour look.

"Mornin', ladies," he greeted with a half-asleep grunt as he shuffled across the room in search of his tea pot. Once he got water boiling and made sure he had enough tea for his breakfast, he shuffled towards his coffee pot to start the disgusting swill he made for Shera every morning.

There was only one problem. "Whyz 'ere already coffee 'n 'ere?" he asked sleepily.

"Shera needs to stop drinking that godawful sludge you make her drink in the morning," one of her two sisters, Cid thought her name was Emily, groused.

Cid opened the lid of the pot and sniffed it curiously, pulling quickly back with a scowl. "The fuck is that? Doesn't even smell like coffee!"

"It's decaf," Emily tutted, "Much better for you than those.... dregs you drink." She glared disdainfully at the various types of tea scattered across the counter as though they had given her some personal insult.

"I like my goddamn tea," Cid grumbled, "and Shera likes her goddamn coffee." He proceeded to pour the contents of the coffee pot into the sink and scrubbed the rest of the machine with a vengeance. Both of Shera's sisters squawked irritably and tried to rescue their coffee pot. "Look, I don't give a rat's ass if yer Shera's family!" Cid snapped, "I draw the line at ye tryin' ta rearrange my kitchen!"

He put a big hand on each of the younger women's backs and shoved them out the door, then turned around and picked up Shera's protesting mother and deposited her on the only chair in the living room that did not have something else on it already. "And if I catch any of ye in my kitchen again-" he was cut off by a shriek coming from the bathroom.

All four of them were on their feet and racing for the small upstairs bathroom. Cid got their first, flung the door open, fully expecting to find Shera standing on the toilet and brandishing a hairbrush at the weird rat with the cigar that kept popping up everywhere or trying to beat some poor defenseless spider with a blow dryer. Instead, the hysterical woman threw herself into Cid's arms, giggling like a school girl.

"Shera?" Cid asked, totally dumbfounded. "Shera, the hell have ya been smokin'?"

"I'm pregnant!" she crowed, arms thrown around his neck and kissed his cheek. "I'm pregnant!"

Cid felt his jaw drop. He knew how much Shera loved children, how much she had always wanted kids. It was one of those things that had scared the hell out of Cid, the idea of kids running around his house causing chaos, and any kid of his was bound to be trouble.

But since it was Tseng's kid, and Tseng had to take care of it...

Cid picked Shera up and spun her around. "That's fuckin' great!" he shouted, leaning down to kiss her forehead, all misgivings about her getting married forgotten in the face of her pure delight. He even managed to forget about the harpies that were Shera's mother and sisters until one of them spoke up.

"But you're not married yet!" her mother gasped, obviously appalled.

Cid and Shera stopped celebrating and simply stared at the old woman for a few moments. "Yeah, so?" Cid finally asked.

The explosion of screeching and screaming that followed would leave Cid's ears ringing for hours afterwards. Shera's mother and sisters screamed in rage, ranting about her embarrassing their family and making a fool of herself and something about chastity before marriage until Cid finally lost his temper and unceremoniously threw all three women out of his house in a fit of rage.

"And don't fuckin' come back until ye can be fuckin' happy for her!" he roared at the three startled women who were now sitting on their butts on the front step and slammed the door. He leaned against the door for a moment, catching his breath, before turning and swinging the door open again. "On second thought," he told the three women, who were still sitting in shock on the ground, "just go fuck off and don't come back." He slammed the door again.

He made his way over to the couch where Shera was sitting on a pile of blueprints with a lost look on her face. "Ye okay?" Cid asked, peering down at her.

"I knew they'd be disappointed," Shera muttered, shaking her head absently, "but I thought, since I was getting married to him..." She suddenly burst into tears and brought her hands up to cover her face.

"Oh fuck, don't do that!" Cid moaned and threw himself down onto the couch next to her. He hated it when women cried. He had no idea what to do! Gingerly, he brought his hand up and meekly patted her back.

Shera threw her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder. Cid grimaced and put his arms around her and just let her cry, rubbing slow, gentle circles on her back like his mother had done when he got hurt as a child. "Don't ye worry about those old bats, Shera," he muttered, "I'm happy for ye, and Tseng's gonna be fuckin' thrilled when ye tell him. That's all that matters. We love ye, don't matter if ye get yaself knocked up before or after ye marry the bastard."

Shera made a little noise that might have been a laugh between sobs, or it might have just been a hiccup. Cid sighed and kissed the top of her head, "We'll love ye no matter what." Shera sobbed gratefully onto his shoulder.

**~*~Poor, Poor Vincent~*~**

"And _why_ am I being kidnapped and dragged back to Rocket Town against my will?" Vincent asked as he sulked in the front seat of Tseng's helicopter. Tseng thought he very much looked like an overgrown, pouting child.

"Because Shera said she would call off the wedding if I did not bring you home," Tseng answered patiently. In the back of the chopper, Yuffie giggled. She was being flown to Rocket Town to be fitted for her bridesmaid dress and Shera had asked Tseng to pick her up on the way back from the City of the Ancients.

"I do not recall Rocket Town being my home," Vincent replied stiffly.

Tseng chuckled. "Well, Shera seems to think you belong there," he answered. "She thinks you can cure Cid's incurable grumpiness."

"Well, Cid cures Vinnie's!" Yuffie chirped from the back.

Vincent slouched lower in his seat and glared straight ahead. Even his cape seemed to be quietly fuming. Tseng laughed. "One more question," Vincent spoke up.

"Hm?" Tseng asked.

"We are several hundred feet in the air and you've already confiscated my gun, so _why_ do you still have be tied up?" Vincent asked through gritted teeth.

"So Cid can unwrap you, of course!" Yuffie answered before Tseng could. Tseng chuckled, but remained silent. Truthfully, he had tied Vincent up on Shera's orders, the woman being convinced that Vincent would some how magically escape. Considering the five hour game of net-launcher tag he had led them on, Tseng honestly believed he might have managed it. There was something to say for a man who could trick seven armed Turks into netting each other instead of their target.

He set the chopper down on the custom landing pad Cid had installed for him two months ago and, despite Vincent's protest, carried the taller gunman over his shoulder into the Highwind house, a maniacally giggling Yuffie skipping along in front of them with Vincent's gun in her arms.

"Honey, I'm home!" she called as she paraded into the house.

"Not so loud!" Cid shouted from somewhere in the living room, "Ye'll wake Shera up!"

"And your shouting won't?" Vincent grumbled from his position on Tseng's shoulder. "Would you please untie me now? I'm not going to run off."

They found Cid sprawled out on the couch, apparently unconcerned by the fact that he was lying on several inches of paperwork, with Shera nestled between him and couch, Cid's arm draped protectively across her shoulders with his other hand occupied by a cigarette. Tseng dropped Vincent onto one of the chairs with a little less care than he intended and glared at Cid. "And why are you laying like that with my fiancé, Highwind?" he asked, arms crossed and foot tapping patiently.

Cid took a drag of his cigarette and grinned up at Tseng. "'Cause I just saved her from three evil harpies tryin' ta eat her heart," he explained simply, "she was just thankin' her prince charmin'"

Tseng grumbled something and reached over Cid to pick Shera up and cradle her against his chest. "Mine," he growled possessively and carried her back towards Shera's room.

Cid sat up and rubbed his shoulder. He gazed bemusedly at Vincent, "Why the fuck are ya tied up like that, Vin?"

Vincent sighed, "Apparently I am supposed to be some kind of present for you." Cid laughed and walked over to untie him while Yuffie wandered off to raid Cid's kitchen.

"Where the hell have ye been, ya silly shit?" Cid asked as he pulled off the last of the ropes, "We've been worried sick about ya."

"I was thinking," Vincent replied evenly. He carefully stretched his aching muscles and listened to the pleasing sounds of his joins popping that never failed to make Cid grimace.

"'Bout what?"

Somewhere in the kitchen, Yuffie screamed. "Cid!" she screamed, "there's something moving in your refrigerator!"

"So find somethin' ta hit it with!" Cid shouted, "Yer a ninja, ain't ya?"

"But it's wiggling!" Yuffie wailed.

Cid rolled his eyes and grinned at Vincent, "Don't you try sneakin' off again." He stalked into the kitchen to rescue Yuffie from the evil, wiggling thing.

"_Pregnant?!"_

An ominous thump issued from Shera's room and Cid almost felt the slightest bit sorry for Tseng.

Three weeks later, Tseng and Shera were married. Cid disappeared for a week to the outrage of Shera and the bemusement of Vincent. Shera and Vincent found him sleeping on the couch the day before the wedding, covered in white paint and dirt and smelling as though he had not bathed in a month. Outside, the largest cherry blossom tree either of them had ever seen was now planted on the hill behind Cid's house and painted white for the wedding, the whole thing in bloom with pink petals.

"He really is a sweetie at heart, isn't he?" Shera giggled as Vincent draped a blanket across the dozing man. Cid snorted in his sleep. "And cute, too."

"Adorable," Vincent replied sarcastically.

The wedding itself was woefully uneventful. Shera dropped a few jaws, most noticeably Cid and Tseng's, when she appeared in the most elegant white kimono they had ever seen, her hair hung loose in curls and woven with pearls and white ribbons. Cid, who had never seen her in anything other than engine grease and blue jeans, tripped over his own feet and nearly lit the cherry blossom tree he had brought on her fire with his cigarette.

It was a beautiful scene in the end, petals flying through the air in a brilliant pink blizzard as Tseng and Shera said their vows. Shera's mother and sisters sat in the back and sulked, shooting wicked glances as Cid from time to time. A few relatives on both sides questioned the creepy man in the red cape that was perched in the tree through the whole wedding, and a few more actually jumped back in alarm when he suddenly descended after the ceremony was over and Shera gave a delighted shriek and threw her arms around the much taller gunman.

"I thought you didn't come!" she nearly sobbed. She had done everything in her power not to cry during the wedding, but now that she was over making a tearful fool of herself seemed much more appealing. "I was afraid you were still mad at me!" Indeed, Vincent had been quietly sulking since Tseng had dragged him home. He had barely spoken to Shera for the first two weeks.

Vincent looked torn between the urge to flee or laugh. He carefully put his arms around Shera's small frame, "Mad or not, Shera, wild horses could not have kept me from coming to your wedding."

Shera giggled and buried her face in Vincent's cloak, tears of delight and relief streaming down her face. She now understood why her friends had given their sympathies when she said she had to finish the planning for her wedding by herself. Cid and Tseng watched in bemused shock as the cloak actually seemed to wrap around Shera and hug her. "Doesn't mean I'm not still mad at you," Vincent added as an afterthought. "You did make your husband tie me up and drag me back here."

"I'd have done it myself if he hadn't," Shera muttered. "You belong here, Vincent. I don't know why you feel the need to wander around and drive me and Cid mad with worry."

Vincent remained silent. Relatives began slowly creeping towards Tseng to ask which one of them the creepy tall man was related to and if they should be scared of him and his possessed cloak. Finally, exasperated and a little irritated at how immature they were all being about it, Tseng announced loudly that he was Vincent Valentine, he was Shera's brother -to which Cid, Vincent, and Shera were all forced to hold back laughter-, and the next person who so much as looked at him sideways would find a ShinRa issue EMR shoved into the first orifice the nearest Turk could find.

From their various places scattered around the party, Elena, Reno, and Rude have him salutes with said EMRs. Tseng's closer relatives, more or less accustomed to the oddity that was Tseng's friends, too this in stride. Everyone else, however, very quickly gave Vincent and the Turks plenty of room. Shera rolled her eyes and escaped Vincent's arms to kiss her husband.

"You're lucky I love you," she giggled.

Much to Shera's unabashed shock and delight and Tseng's slight mortification, the reception party which had originally been planned to take place in Cid's back yard, was instead moved to the deck of Cid's wedding present: Shera and Tseng's own airship.

"Cid," Tseng asked as Cid brought the airship to a healthy cruise several hundred feet in the air, "what am I going to do with an airship? Particularly one that could probably hold two hundred people comfortably?"

Cid turned on the specialized auto pilot system Reeve had designed for the ship on and stepped down from deck. "Ask Shera," he suggested, grinning somewhat maliciously, "she's the one who said she wanted an airship for her next birthday."

Tseng groaned and wandered off to find his wife. Vincent appeared from a shadow and handed Cid a drink. "No alcohol, as promised," he said as the two walked over to the railing. Cid had designed Shera's ship so that the protective glass that normally guarded the pilot could be withdrawn and leave the deck open to the air.

"Thanks," Cid murmured. He gazed down at the ground passing below them, "Guess it's just ye an' me now, huh?"

"Guess so," Vincent mused. "Shera says she will personally drag me back by my testicles if I run off again."

Cid chuckled and they fell back into a comfortable silence. Cid finished his drink and Vincent offered to get him another one.

"Chief?" Vincent asked as he made his way off the deck. "Normally you don't mind drinking. What's the special occasion?"

"I don't wanna do something to screw this up for Shera," Cid said with a slight shrug. "I get mean when I get drunk, Vin, ye know that. Normally I know my limit but I ain't gonna take my chances tonight."

Vincent nodded, touched a the odd little show of affection and went off get them more punch. Three hours later, Shera was uncomfortably aware of how many of her party goes were drunk when she knew a fair few of them normally had much more sense.

"Tseng!" she called nervously to her new husband. Tseng almost immediately appeared at her side. "Tseng, what are the chances one of your Turks spiked the punch?" she asked. She nervously wrung at the hem of the simple white yukata she had donned in favor of her heavy kimono.

Tseng looked around, "Pretty good, I'd say. What are the chances one of Cid's friends did?"

"Considering Yuffie's conspicuously absent," Shera sighed, "pretty good." She took a deep breath and massaged her temples, "I thought I was feeling a suspicious buzz coming on. Remind me to kill those two when this is over." She took Tseng's drink and downed it in a single gulp, "Let's hope that autopilot works."

**~*~And this is where the shit hits the propellers~*~**

Cid Highwind had done a lot of things in his life that qualified as stupid, and a few that he had kicked himself over for a while afterwards. Waking up in an unfamiliar bed was not the most stupid thing he had done in his life. He was slightly concerned about the fact that he could not remember the night before, but with luck he had not done anything too...

The back next to him was painted with several different colors of bruising and crisscrossed with newly healed cuts. So much for not doing anything too out of control. Cid knew he was going to be kicking himself for several months to come over this.

Shera was going to kill him when she found out.

Slowly, Cid examined the injured body next to him, taking in the pale skin, horribly delicate looking, but obviously hiding powerful muscles. Long, tangled black hair was spilling across the pillow next to him and something about it looked frighteningly familiar. Cid's stomach clenched uncomfortably.

"Oh please don't tell me..." he muttered, gently reaching over to move the black hair aside. The first thing he noticed was a large, ugly black eye marring a face that Cid had long thought of as perfect. A gauntleted hand came up to swat Cid's hand away.

Cid bolted from the room and was lucky enough to find his way to a bathroom before emptying the contents of his stomach. At least he knew where he was now, but he wondered what he had been thinking designing Shera's ship so the bathrooms were so far away. For a few minutes he just sat on the floor, head pressed to cold porcelain while he tried to catch his breath and gather his thoughts, too tired and stunned to even curse. He hadn't had any alcohol last night, so how on earth had he ended up there?

Finally, he managed to get his feet back under him, flushed the toilet, and went wandering back to the room. A few hungover party goers were wandering the halls now, but frankly Cid did not give a damn and most of them seemed too preoccupied with their own headaches to worry themselves with the naked blond man stalking down the hall.

When he got back to the room, Vincent was gone.

**As usual, Please R&R. Feedback is much loved and appreciated... especially anyone who manages to point out my typos/stupid scrambling of words/etc because I'm too dyslexic to find them.**


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